Ireland's White Paper on Aid must be rewritten to address the importance of investing in culture and arts in our new creative age, writes Ronan Tynan
Ireland's White Paper on Aid is conspicuously silent about the power of the arts and culture in development at a time when the rise of the creative industries are critical to help maintain and sustain growth in the developed world.
Why are we ignoring their potential in the poorest countries, especially when these countries are already well endowed with the raw materials for success - their own people's rich cultural and artistic traditions?
There can be no development without culture because it is the foundation which supports every development. What is culture but the entire system of beliefs, practices and customs that exist in a society. Economic development without these cultural roots will never be sustainable.
But culture is not merely a vehicle for material progress: it is a goal in itself. It is part of the daily reality and is therefore essential to the development of all people. If we fail to notice the themes that occupy people every day and bypass their creativity in our efforts at development co-operation, we will not only fail them but let ourselves down by wasting incredible opportunities.
Lying at the core of society, art is also a means of bringing about social change. Drama, film and music can help people get to grips with their own lives. Take, for example, youth in deprived areas, as Fr Pat Clarke's project in Sao Paulo proved in such a compelling way. Artistic expression is giving self-respect and belief in the future. Art is often an open platform for freedom of speech, even in societies where that freedom is restricted. This makes art an effective tool for exposing social issues.
Ireland's development co-operation programme has a good reputation in many developing countries. We therefore have a tremendous opportunity to make a big difference for artists, film-makers, writers, musicians and composers in the developing world to help them to make an even bigger difference for their own countries in helping to grow their creative industries as well as helping to tackle poverty and social exclusion.
We live in an era of creativity and we stand to make a big return from such investments because unlike other areas of development co-operation, cultural and artistic activity is inherently a two-way street, even if the return will not always be counted in monetary terms.
We gain as much if not more than we give in terms of inspiration and ideas in growing our own creative sector, and in enriching our own culture through the value of that exchange for our own artists and cultural workers, provided of course we ensure they are fully engaged in that process.
However, it is very important that we see the arts and culture as mainstream in development co-operation as we increasingly have to do in working to maintain our own economic survival. We are used to thinking of economic wealth and power as something totally distinct from cultural wealth and power. Many business people, artists and policy-makers seem to prefer it that way. But as the lines dividing them melt away (also driven by the relentless convergence of communications in the digital world) we have no choice but to place a great premium on the creative industries.
A nation's economic power is a reflection of its cultural power, and the ability of more powerful countries to overwhelm the cultures of weaker states needs to be fully recognised and addressed. Just as the industrial age replaced the agricultural age, so the industrial age is being replaced in its turn.
We are moving into a world where the raw materials are not coal and steel but information, where the most valuable products are ideas and meanings, produced not by machines but by the imagination.
Enhancing the capacity of developing countries in the arts and culture is a critical imperative against that background. Ireland's White Paper on Aid must be rewritten to reflect that reality.
Otherwise we risk unwittingly letting down the people we are seeking to help by failing to acknowledge their right to enhance and, more importantly, protect their cultural identity. Indeed, we are morally, if not legally, obliged to do that anyway under the Convention for the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Identity, which the EU has ratified.
Ronan Tynan is a filmmaker with Esperanza Productions, which produced the documentary Where 2+2=5 on the role of the arts in helping children in Sao Paulo avoid drug and gang violence